Emily Wilde's map of the Otherlands A novel

Review by Booklist Review

Emily Wilde is back (after Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, 2023), and this time she is headed to the Austrian Alps, ostensibly to work on her map of Faerie. But she has an ulterior motive: Wendell Bambleby, fellow Cambridge professor, has been poisoned and Emily believes the cure lies in Silva Lupi, the faerie court where Wendell should be king. Plus, his stepmother keeps sending faerie creatures to campus in an attempt to assassinate him. A fellow scholar, Danielle de Gray, was lost trying to find the door to the kingdom, but Emily, along with Wendell, her niece, Ariadne, her dog, Shadow, and, unexpectedly, the Head of the Department of Dryadology, are determined. A mysterious man bedecked with ribbons appears to Emily, but that's nothing compared to the dangers she and her motley crew face, from killer fox-like faeries to otherworldly magic. Once again, the tale is told through Emily's journal, with scholarly asides in footnotes adding to the charm. Readers will be pleased that curmudgeonly Emily hasn't lost too much of her edge, but she's still susceptible to unexpected bonds of friendship. This utterly enchanting series will appeal to readers of Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate books.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Set in September 1910, seven months after the conclusion of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, the entrancing second volume in Fawcett's Emily Wilde series focuses on her protagonist's attempts to locate a faerie nexus in the alpine village of St. Liesl. Emily's interest in the cozy-yet-sinister village is not strictly professional: though she aspires to publish a map of Faerie kingdoms, she also wants to help her colleague and love interest, Wendell Bambleby, find the mystical door leading back to his home realm. Joining them are straitlaced Farris Rose, the head of Cambridge's dryadology department who is constantly threatening to fire them both, and Emily's enthusiastic but inexperienced niece, Ariadne. The presence of these characters helps contextualize Emily's personality, and her grumpiness plays better here than in the first installment. With Wendall's stepmother out for his blood, their search becomes even more urgent. Along the way, they must rescue two other dryadologists who have been trapped in time. Fawcett handily expands the scope of the series, building on all that worked in the first volume and largely doing away with anything that didn't. Upping the danger and the darkness while still retaining all the beauty of the prose, this takes Emily's story to new heights. Agent: Brianne Johnson, HG Literary. (Jan.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

In the follow-up to Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Emily's new research project/adventure is more dangerous and action-packed than her last. While the work on that previous reference book almost compelled Emily to marry a cruel fairy king, research for her new atlas involves poison, assassins, and ravenous fox fairies. It may also require marriage to a different fairy king. Eli Potter and Michael Dodds return as audio narrators. Potter performs the bulk of the book, narrating the contents of Emily's journals, while Dodds narrates the portions of the novel where Emily is absent or incapacitated. Having one primary narrator adds extra depth to the audiobook, as Potter allows the careful portrait she's crafted of Emily to fray at the edges. Potter conveys that (no matter how measured and professional Emily believes herself to be) her relationship with academic rival Wendell Bambleby and her harrowing adventures are changing her, improving her ability to socialize and imparting a kind of cruel practicality that suggests Emily could be an excellent queen of the fairylands. VERDICT This excellent series installment will leave listeners desperate to find out what Emily's up to next.--Matthew Galloway

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The second in a series chronicling the adventures of an English dryadologist--an academic studying faeries--in an alternate Europe. Emily Wilde has refused the marriage proposal of her former academic rival, Wendell Bambleby, because she would be mad to marry a deposed faerie king disguised as a human. But she has devoted herself to finding a door into his kingdom, which would allow him to take back the realm stolen from him by his stepmother. Emily's quest takes her to the isolated Alpine village of St. Liesl, accompanied by Wendell and two unexpected companions: Emily's niece Ariadne, an aspiring dryadologist, and Farris Pole, the prickly head of the Dryadology Department, who blackmailed Emily into including him. Much of the plot follows the outline of the previous volume, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (2023): Emily and her cohort stay in a guesthouse; everyone but Emily manages to befriend the locals (she's hopeless at social niceties); Emily encourages hikes into the countryside, where they have perilous encounters with the local faeries; and Emily's determination leads her to behave rashly, endangering everyone's lives, until her cleverness and intuitive understanding of faerie behavior allow her to triumph. But Emily's adventures remain entertaining, thanks to the neurodivergent heroine whose blunt behavior and affinity for peculiar logic present a problem when interacting with humans but prove an asset with faeries. This book also offers new emotional depths for Emily, who struggles with her growing but potentially life-threatening love for Wendell, unexpected affection for her niece, and fraught relationship with Farris Pole. Now that she has people to care about, the previously solitary young woman has to reckon even more closely with the consequences of her behavior and how it affects those around her. Emily feels like a character worth following; hopefully the next installment shakes up the format a little. A strong second outing for a well-built world and an interesting, strangely well-matched pair of lovers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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14th September 1910 The foot would not fit in my briefcase, so I wrapped it in cloth and wrestled it into an old knapsack I sometimes carry with me on expeditions. Surprisingly--or perhaps unsurprisingly, as it is a faerie foot--it is neither dirty nor foul-smelling. It is, of course, long mummified and would probably be mistaken for a goat's foot by a casual observer, perhaps an unlikely offering excavated from the tomb of some ancient pharaoh. While it does not smell bad, since bringing the foot into my office I have at odd moments caught the scent of wildflowers and crushed grass carried on a little breeze whose source I cannot trace. I gazed at my now-bulging knapsack, feeling entirely ridiculous. Trust me when I say that I would rather not cart a foot around campus with me. But faerie remains, mummified or not, have been known to slip away as the fancy takes them, and I can only assume that feet are particularly inclined to such wanderlust. I shall have to keep it with me until its usefulness has been exhausted. Good grief. The soft chiming of the grandfather clock alerted me that I was late for breakfast with Wendell. I know from experience that if I miss our breakfast appointments he will bring the meal to me himself, in such a quantity that the entire department will smell of eggs, and then for the rest of the day I shall have to suffer Professor Thornthwaite sniping at me about his delicate stomach. I paused to pin my hair back up--it's grown far too long, as I've spent the past several weeks descending into one of my obsessive periods, when I can think of little else beyond the subject of my research. And the question of Wendell's door has consumed me more than any other academic mystery I can remember. My hair is not the only area of my appearance I have neglected of late--my brown dress is rumpled, and I am not altogether certain it is clean; I found it in a heap of other questionably laundered items on the floor of my closet. "Come, dear," I said to Shadow. The dog roused himself from his bed by the oil heater with a yawn, stretching his massive paws. I stopped for a moment to glance around my office with satisfaction--when I was recently granted tenure, I also inherited a much more spacious office, now three doors away from Wendell's (naturally he has found a way to complain about this additional twenty feet of distance). The grandfather clock came with the room, as did the enormous damasked curtains lining the sash window that overlooks Knight College's pond--presently dotted with swans--and the magnificent oak desk with its drawers lined with black velvet. I added bookshelves, of course, and a ladder to reach the uppermost volumes, whilst Wendell insisted on cluttering the place up with two photographs from Hrafnsvik that I did not even know he took, one of me standing in the snowy garden with Lilja and Margret, the other of a village scene; a vase of dried flowers that somehow never lose their scent; and the newly reframed painting of Shadow he commissioned for my twenty-eighth birthday--all right, I cannot complain about that. My beast looks very fetching. I passed several students sunk deep into the armchairs of the dryadology department common room, an open space beyond the faculty offices that boasts a cosy fireplace--unlit on this warm September day--as well as an impressive row of windows taller than several men, with little half-moons of stained glass at the top, which face the Gothic grandeur of the Library of Medicine, its proximity the subject of innumerable wry remarks concerning a dryadologist's susceptibility to strange injuries. In one corner is a bronze urn filled with salt--campus legend has it this began as a joke, but many a whey-faced undergraduate has visited this vessel to stuff their pockets after sitting through their first lecture on wights. Not that there is much to worry about, as we do not ordinarily have Folk wandering into the department to hear what we mortals are saying about them (Wendell excepted). The thick rugs scattered on the floor must be trodden on with care, for they are lumpy from the coins stuffed beneath them. Like the salt, this tradition most likely originated as a humourous diversion rather than any serious design to ward the Folk away from our halls, and has now largely devolved into a sort of good-luck ritual, with students pressing a ha'penny into the floor before an exam or dissertation. (Less superstitious young scholars have also been known to raid this lowly hoard for pub money.) Shadow gave a happy grunt when we stepped outside--he is ordinarily a quiet dog--and plunged into the sunlit grass, snuffling about for snails and other edibles. I followed at a more sedate walk, enjoying the sun on my face, as well as the cool edge to the wind that heralded the coming autumn. Just past the main dryadology building was the ivy-clad magnificence of the Library of Dryadology, which overlooks a lawn dotted with trees known in this part of Britain as faerie favourites, yew and willow. Several students were napping beneath the largest of these, a great hoary willow believed (erroneously, I'm afraid) to be the home of a sleeping leprechaun, who will one day awaken and stuff the pockets of the nearest slumberer he encounters with gold. I felt a pleasant sense of kinship as I passed into the shadow of that library. I can hear Wendell mocking me for having familial feelings for a library, but I don't care; it's not as if he reads my personal journals, though he is not above teasing me for continuing the journalling habit after we left Ljosland. I seem unable to quit it; I find it greatly helps me organize my thoughts. I continued to gaze at the library as the path rounded a corner--unwisely, as it happened, for I collided with a man walking in the opposite direction, so forcefully I nearly lost my footing. "I'm so sorry," I began, but the man only rudely waved my apology away. He was holding a great quantity of ribbons in his hands, which he seemed to be in the process of tying together. "Have you any more?" he demanded. "These won't be enough." "I'm afraid not," I replied cautiously. The man was dressed oddly for the weather, in a long, fur-lined cloak and tremendous boots extending to his knees. In addition to the ribbons in his hands, he had a long chain of them looped multiple times round his neck, and more spilling from his pockets. They were a highly eclectic assemblage, varied in both colour and size. Between the ribbons and his considerable height, the man had the look of a maypole given human form. He was perhaps in the latter stages of middle age, with mostly brown hair a shade or two lighter than his skin, as if bleached by the elements, and a scraggly white beard. "They won't be enough for what?" I enquired. The man gave me the most inexplicable glare. There was something familiar about that look that I could not put my finger on, though I was certain I had never met this strange person before. I felt a shiver glide along my neck like the brush of a cold fingertip. "The path is eternal," he said. "But you mustn't sleep--I made that mistake. Turn left at the ghosts with ash in their hair, then left at the evergreen wood, and straight through the vale where my brother will die. If you lose your way, you will lose only yourself, but if you lose the path, you will lose everything you never knew you had." I stared at him. The man only looked down at his ribbons with an air of dismissing me and continued on his way. Of course I turned to see which direction he went, and was only mildly surprised to find that he had disappeared. "Hm!" I grunted. "What do you think of that, my love?" Shadow, though, had taken little interest in the man; he was presently eyeing a magpie that had descended to the lawn to yank at a worm. I filed the encounter away and continued across the leafy campus grounds. Excerpted from Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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